The Kids are Making a Mess

There is a reason that February was dry on posts. Actually two reasons: 1) Caleb is obsessed with the computer mouse and so if I want to work up here it's got to be when he is asleep or otherwise occupied downstairs; and 2) I lost my camera for a time. In fact, I thought it was gone for good. I even called the vacuum salespeople who had been by and told them I suspected they stole it. But it was lost behind the computer thanks to Caleb's work with the mouse. Yes, I did call and apologize to the salespeople. Embarassing.

Like I said, Caleb's obsessed with the mouse.

Jayne LOVES when I start crocheting. She likes the afghan I'm making too but the strings of yarn are just too much fun.

Caleb's eating is getting so much better. He's started to try spoon-feeding himself and he loves playing with the yogurt. This particular day he actually ate half of the cracker. That was a first and so exciting. But this process of teaching him to self-feed is VERY messy. On Friday Nate asked me if I'd put some sort of product in Caleb's hair (which was actually brushed at the time.) My initial response was no until I remembered, "Oh yeah, jam."


Jayne is a happy girl. Always smiling. She likes all sorts of toys and gets all over the room to explore and see what's out to play with. Her favorite toys by far are Evander's. Her favorite of Evander's toys is his red fire truck. That's where she is headed to in this picture.

Priesthood Power

Every so often, quite often in fact, I have the thought that it must have been unimaginably difficult to care for children back when. Back When being before modern medicine, plumbing, heating, 24-hour Walgreens, wet wipes, washer/dryers that don't involve manual labor, sweet-tasting Tylenol and of course cars. Raised with all of these conveniences available, and even more now that I am a mother I am so grateful for them. Parents must have been hardy and ingenuitive to keep their kids healthy and safe. Last night I thought about this when Caleb was struggling through an hours long coughing fit. It was getting harder and harder for him to breathe. He was miserable and exhausted and we were worried. None of the modern conveniences were helping. Nate gave Caleb a priesthood blessing and then we bundled him up to take him to the hospital. When Nate was just about ready to head out the door, the coughing stopped and Caleb fell asleep on my lap. And I realized that back when they had the priesthood too. I am sure that many parents called on its power in the same way that we did last night and were blessed with the same blessing of healing and calm.

The Cremation of Sam McGee

Now and then when the kids have gone to bed and we aren't yet ready to go to sleep ourselves, Nate builds a fire in the fireplace. We scoot the couch around so it is just a couple of feet from the hearth and facing it head on. I lie on the end of the couch closest to the fire and enjoy getting too warm. And I just can't help it, every time I lie there I think of my 6th grade teacher Mr. Houghton and the poem he would recite about a man who was sick of being cold and just wanted a good hot fire.

Here it is:

The Cremation of Sam McGee
by Robert W. Service
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam ‘round the Pole, God only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;

Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.

Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;

It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,

And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,

He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;

And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:

“It’s the cursed cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet ‘taint being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;

And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;

And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,

With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,

But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,

Howled out their woes to the homeless snows—O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;

And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;

The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;

And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;

It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”

And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;

Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;

Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;

The flames just soared and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
Then I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;

And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.

It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;

And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;

But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.

I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked;” . . . then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.

It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.